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Wall Street slides as U.S.-China trade spat intensifies

Reuters 

By Sruthi Shankar

(Reuters) - The fell more than 450 points and the other main indexes slipped on Friday after U.S. Donald Trump's latest tariff threat on Chinese imports revived fears of a trade war between the two countries.

Trump on Thursday threatened to slap $100 billion more in tariffs on Chinese imports, while said it was fully prepared to respond with a "fierce counter strike".

Fears of a trade war since Trump announced tariffs on and aluminium more than a month ago have kept investors on edge over concerns that such protectionist measures would hit global economic growth.

"Markets are absolutely appalled by protectionism," said Dec Mullarkey, at based in Wellesley,

said the markets may tolerate some tit-for-tat, given the strong fundamentals.

"Let's fast forward to next week, if earnings are strong then markets will take a lot of comfort and that's the expectation."

Mixed signals from administration officials also added to the nervousness. Trump's top told he learnt of the new tariffs on Thursday night. He told TV that negotiations had not yet started, but later said on Fox Business that talks are ongoing.

"Clearly the reaction from to tariffs is clearly the only factor driving the markets today," said Randy Frederick, vice of trading and derivatives for in

At 12:54 a.m. the was down 320.42 points, or 1.31 percent, at 24,184.8. The Dow dropped 456 points at session's low.

The 500 was down 26.29 points, or 0.99 percent, at 2,636.55 and the was down 63.26 points, or 0.89 percent, at 7,013.29.

All 30 Dow components were in the red and each of the 11 sectors were lower, with the and falling the least.

As on Wednesday, industrials led the decliners. Boeing, the single largest U.S. exporter to China, fell 2.5 percent. declined 2.8 percent and dropped about 2.3 percent.

Chipmakers, which as a group rely on for about a quarter of their revenue, also declined. The index fell 1.2 percent.

Nonfarm payrolls increased by a fewer-than-expected 103,000 last month, a Labor Department report showed. While the annual growth in average hourly earnings rose to 2.7 percent, it stayed below the 3-percent that economists estimate is needed to lift inflation toward the Federal Reserve's 2-percent target.

"That's not showing us wage inflation where the Fed would have to step in. This seems to be a natural improvement," said Sean Lynch, co-head of global equity strategy, Institute in Omaha,

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 2.64-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and a 2.25-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The index showed two new 52-week highs and one new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 33 new highs and 37 new lows.

(Reporting by in Bengaluru, additional reporting by in New York; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

First Published: Fri, April 06 2018. 23:37 IST
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